'I had no intentions in someone else losing their job': Cabinet finisher is wrongly blamed for repeated customer rejections, brings in a consultant to review his work, ultimately exposing coworker’s improper prep process and leading to his termination

Author image for Emma Saven
Emma Saven
Jan 17, 2026 6:00 PM EST

Nobody wants to see their coworker get the boot…Unless, of course, they're completely unbearable! 

But that's just not the case here. In fact, this worker had no direct intention of getting his coworker fired, and soon began feeling guilty regarding the whole ordeal…He was just trying to clear his name, and by doing so, threw dirt all over someone else's. 

Deserving or not, seeing someone both harmless yet slightly incompetent lose their job is never easy. This cabinet finisher was passionate about his job…I mean, as passionate as someone can be about cabinets. We aren't necessarily talking Jay Pritchett's love for closets level, but maybe somewhat close. So when his cabinets were being rejected and returned from customers after purchase, he was completely disappointed. However, he knew that his work was far from the point of rejection and actually somewhat flawless. So he ordered in a consultant to check his work…and just as his intuition guessed: a job well done. So the consultant dove deeper into the other operations going on inside the shop.

And BINGO…A coworking target was found guilty of doing the "completely wrong" work…Now this coworker is receiving a box for his things as he's led out the door! But the main finisher is starting to feel guilty for subconsciously leading the consultants to him. That was never his intention, so how will he accept the fact that he got someone else laid off during these vulnerable and expensive times in the economy…

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  • In a tricky situation that requires “exposing” another person’s wrongdoing or incompetent abilities, a person is bound to experience guilt. No one ever wants to see another person fail, but at what point do you take their test away and tell them, “Pens down, time's up.” Because someone has to do it. Otherwise, they’ll just continue writing, and in this case, bring the company down with them. There has to be a limit or a ‘grace period’ that allows for mistakes, but someone in upper management eventually has to take responsibility and pull the plug on the number of errors they are willing to allow that dent their reputation. 


     

  • Carpenter building in a warehouse
    via gettyimages

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • AITAH for unintentionally getting my coworker fired?

    I (30M) work as a finisher is cabinet making, I started last August and have been in this feild for about 6 years.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • I mostly work alone as its a woodshop and the other people here are usually covered in dust, sawdust and debris so outside of my booth day to day I don't really see what's going on.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • About 3 months before I started here there was another new hire who I'll call Sam.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • Sam works as the sander/primer and preps all the parts before I put a final coat of paint on them.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • He is just out of school for carpentry / cabinet making. For the first few months everything went great.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • One day I got an entire kitchen order sent back to me because the customer wasn't happy, I looked over the parts and could clearly see why and this started happening more and more frequently.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • My boss seemed to think that all the problems were coming from my end. I tweaked a bunch of stuff in how I preform my work and the set up I have to try and mitigate all these issues.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • This job has been great for myself and my family and I really did not want anything to jeopardize it.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • After about a month of all this happening I contacted a consultant who has been in the field for a lot longer than I have to review how I'm doing my job.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • Man sanding wood in a warehouse
    via Anna Shvets

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • After a few hours he determined that I was doing well with my work and decided to look into other factors of what might be happening in the shop.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • He went over to see how the prep work was operating (priming and sanding) and found that he was doing his work completly wrong and relayed all the information over to my boss.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • I'm not really sure what happened after that as I stated before that I'm usually isolated by myself in my own work area but I know that coworker was let go shortly after.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • I feel bad because I know where I'm living everything is getting more expensive to just live a normal life and my only intention was to secure my job and had no intentions in someone else losing their job over this.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • So, am I the asshole for this?
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • Deep_Explanation9962 NTA but Im a bit confused how you didn't realize this yourself before calling in the consultant? Aren't you after the fired guy in the process? So you should be able to determine if he's sending you good parts or not, no?
    via Deep_Explanation9962
  • OP Independent-Kiwi 1969 The mistakes were mostly very minor. I could get into details but a lot of it would not be noticed until the paint is applied and/or dried and somehow got past QA to be sent out to the customer. But in the customers eyes, minor mistakes aren't acceptable when they are paying thousands to have their home redone.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • Witty_Fall_2007 NTA - The company should have taken the steps that you did to review everyones work after the FIRST order came back. You were only doing your due diligence to make sure your work was correct. But a question for you: since the primer/sander was doing poor work, wouldn't you have noticed it as well since you are the next step in the process? Could you have sent it back to him before finishing and shipping?
    via Witty_Fall_2007
  • OP Independent-Kiwi 1969 Unfortunately it wasn't something that would be immediately noticeable. All very minor mistakes but to a customer who's paying thousands, not acceptable. In hindsight I will definitely be paying a lot more attention to everything before I do my part.
    via Independent-Kiwi1969
  • dancingmonkey1418 You did nothing to him. You did your job. He didn't do his and apparently your boss didn't think he was coachable
    via dancingmonkey1418
  • Manager firing a builder on site
    via gettyimages

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • MyChoiceNotYours NTA if they had been doing their job correctly they wouldn't have been fired.
    via MyChoiceNotYours
  • alchemistlawofone NTA, I work in this industry as well, and prepping pieces for you to finish out is not hard imo, and costly mistakes with cabinets will loose customers and cost your business' reputation massively. It does really suck to anyone in any industry right now getting fired because the job market is bad however it takes a lot of negligence usually to get completely canned. You did your job and your part and you would have risked your job not investigating further.
    via alchemistlawofone
  • BedroomEducational94 NTA- You had YOUR own work assessed to try to make sure you were doing a good job. There is no reason you should hold guilt over them figuring out what (or who) the problem was in this case. Especially since you said there were months of good work that came out of that individual, so at one point they KNEW what they were supposed to do.
    via BedroomEducational94
  • Intelligent_Fail3422 U're valid for feeling a bit guilty because u're a good person but don't let it eat u up. he got himself fired by being irresponsible.. u were just the messenger.
    via Intelligent_Fail3422

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